U.S. Inaction and KRG Divisions Help Iran in Iraqi Kurdistan

In a private letter delivered to the White House earlier this month, the prime minister of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq warned that Kurdistan—and Iraq’s post-2003 federal system—faces imminent collapse unless the United States intervenes. Masrour Barzani sent his extraordinary warning amid mounting political and economic challenges for the autonomous region and an increasingly belligerent government in Baghdad.

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) is important to U.S. interests in several ways. Its Peshmerga forces are key…